Jenni from the book

Something a little different from me this time. I've always loved reading (it must've been The Very Hungry Caterpillar that started it all off) but as I've gotten older, I seem to find less and less time to do it. When I was working at McDonalds, I would read a chapter (or sometimes only a few pages) before bed but then when I started a 9-5 job, I found that I was too tired by the time I got in bed and stopped bothering completely. That was like a year ago and I've suddenly rediscovered my love of books (thanks to running out of data on my phone one month and needing something to do on the tram home) so I thought I'd share the love with any fellow reading fans by telling you what I thought to the last few books I've read. I'll try and do this without giving the whole book away but obviously a spoiler alert is still needed here.

Miss You is a story of two star-crossed lovers who have a habit of missing each other. Over the span of the next 16 years after the two paths briefly cross on holiday at a pivotal point in both of their lives, the book follows the journey that both of them go on and cleverly weaves them together - keeping them both painfully close but still so far at the same time. I loved this book because it's everything that I believe in; fate and chance and timing and the path that your decisions set you on. The author was very clever in the way she had them cross over (one example being that Tess was waiting for the toilet on a plane while Gus was inside joining the mile high club with his wife) and I loved all the near-misses that she managed to get in there. However, I am also a big believer in chasing success and creating the life that you want for yourself, which neither of the main characters end up doing. They both fall in to a life instead of going after what they really want and by the time they're in their mid-thirties, it almost feels like it's a bit too late. Not for a happy ending (romance-wise) but that's not all that life's about. I suppose this is a more realistic take on life (not everyone has all their dreams come true and most end up comfortable rather than ecstatically happy) but it's not what I'm aiming for. I did especially love the build up to the ending, when the two were so close to meeting but not quite there yet and the author did a good job of letting it play out slowly. However, the actual ending (when they had finally met) was way too rushed. A lot of authors fall in to this trap; it's not enough to give the reader hope or to let them decide in their head on their own ending. It has to be the ultimate happily ever after but when she'd spent the whole book keeping them apart, it was too much too soon. I would still recommend reading it though, especially if you liked One Day or Sliding Doors.

This one I did not enjoy so much. I didn't actually realise that A Girl's Best Friend was part of a trilogy (the third book) until I was quite a way in, which explains why there wasn't much character development or back story (presumably because this was done in the first two books). The book is basically about a budding photographer who jets off to New York for Christmas to escape her turmoil over choosing between two guys who she has previously been in love with, one of whom is her best friend and the other who actually lives in New York. My problem with this book though wasn't that I didn't understand it (because it was fairly easy to fill in the blanks) but it was because it was completely predictable and unrealistic. A budding/struggling photographer who's never had any work experience? Oh she just so happens to be sat in the office of a major magazine when their photographer phones in sick and she gets to step in on their New Year issue shoot. Oh and she's just roaming around New York when she just happens to bump in to the guy she's in love with. And obviously the ending could've been a guessed about 20 pages in. Some people like this kind of fluffy reading but I prefer something with a few more twists and turns, something that you maybe don't know how it will end. Overall, I would say to save yourself some time and read something else.

Given that this book was along the same lines (a love story set in New York), I worried it might be the same thing again but this was a million times better. The Futures is a story of Evan (a Canadian-born Hockey player with a lot of ambition and a desire to escape his small-town life) and Julia (a girl from a wealthy family who is struggling to know what she wants to do) who meet at Yale University, fall in love and move to New York to start a life together. The main thing I loved about this book is that it started where most books end; at happily ever after. The main story is not about how they meet and fall in love (that's a back story that's mainly covered at the beginning) but about how their lives change as they try to find themselves in the adult world and whether their individual journeys will keep them together or tear them apart. While Evan tries to make a name for himself in the world of finance (amid the 2008 market crash) and subsequently gets caught up in a dodgy deal, Julia looks for the attention and affection that Evan isn't giving her and ends up in the arms of someone from her past. I also loved that it's not in chronological order - the book jumps from the present to various memories from the past and hints at certain events or people but always keeps a bit back, keeping an air of mystery for the reader. Like 500 Days of Summer, I initially thought that this was a story of real life and real love, about how growing up can often mean growing apart and about how not every romance is your happily ever after. And while in a way it was all of those things, after finishing it I realised that it was more a story about the curve balls life throws at you, about how losing your way can sometimes just be about finding a new path and about how things have a funny way of working out in ways you could never have imagined. It was also a really well-written book, however this could at times make the characters seem too articulate. For two young adults who seemed like life was coming at them too fast, they seemed too quick to be able to identify the problem and explain it and pinpoint exactly what was wrong. If you're feeling lost, chances are it's because you're not able to articulate those things, but it obviously made for a better written book, even if slightly less realistic characters. Unlike A Girl's Best Friend and Miss You, this book ended perfectly with hope and ambiguity and the chance to decide the fate of the two characters in your own mind. For anyone who's tired of the same old love story, this book is 10/10.

This book took a bit more getting in to as it's a dystopian-style book (like Hunger Games and Divergent) and so there's a fair bit of background information to be covered before jumping in to the story. Flawed is set in a time where, along with the criminal justice system, there is also a separate morality court called the Guild, who are supposed to make sure that no one of questionable ethics is placed in positions of power. People who make unethical decisions therefore have their skin branded in 1 of 5 places (depending on the crime), they have to wear an armband and they effectively live as second class citizens with a restricted diet, limited job opportunities, a curfew and punishments for stepping out of line - these people are called the Flawed. The main character, Celestine, is a stickler for the rules and has a perfect plan for her future with her son-of-the-head-judge-of-the-guild boyfriend. However, another rule is that you are not allowed to "aid a flawed" in any way and so when she acts with compassion and humanity, she suffers for it and becomes Flawed herself. The story follows her through her new life and the revolution that follows as the Guild finds itself on shaky grounds. I didn't realise it until I was right near the end, but there is actually a follow-on book, Perfect, which makes sense because there was definitely too much content to fit in to just one book. Not only are these books well-written and well-developed, but it's the kind of story that really comments on society, that makes us question our decisions and that makes us consider what it really means to be human. The mirroring to the treatment of Jews in Germany is also there (like with the armbands) and as you're getting increasingly infuriated with the other characters not doing anything about it, it makes you wonder how everyone sat by as it actually happened in real life. Art imitating reality is a very powerful thing and I love authors who have the balls to do it. Obviously because it's a teen drama, there's also a love triangle, teenage defiance and an aspect of figuring out who you are. I was worried at one point that the love triangle wouldn't pan out how I was hoping but it ended in exactly the way I wanted it to, although there were so many twists and turns towards the end of the second book that it was anything but predictable.

I had high hopes for this book because the previous two by this author were amazing (one being the original and the second being a sequel). The Best of Adam Sharp is separate from that story line and is instead about a man who has spent the last twenty years wondering if he made the right decision in letting Angelina Brown go, a woman who he fell in love with during a perfect summer in Australia. Fast forward two decades and he's living a comfortable-but-not-very-exciting life with his long-term partner when he gets an email from Angelina, which makes him wonder if there's more than the way he's living now. Despite my high hopes, this book really disappointed. The love story from twenty years ago (of how Adam and Angelina met, fell in love and were tore apart) was beautiful and lined up the rest of the story perfectly for either a heart warming tale of two lovers reunited or a heart-wrenching Casablanca-style story of when love just isn't enough. However, what the story actually seemed to be about was 2, no 4, sociopaths. Essentially, Adam leaves his partner, Claire, without even an explanation and goes and stays with Angelina and her husband in France. The two then begin an affair which seemed mildly exciting at first until you find out that the husband not only knows about it but is encouraging it because of his desperate need to give Angelina anything she wants (including a threesome). After a very strange week where you start to think the two main characters might end up together, Adam decides he can't be the reason of the breakup of their marriage and family and says he needs to let Angelina go. She then reveals that her husband had an affair first and this was both of theirs way of "evening the score" in order to move forwards. Adam then goes back home to Claire and the two of them get back together with her saying she knows what he's probably been up to, doesn't want to know and simply accepts him back all in the same sentence. Maybe it's an age-gap thing and I simply can't relate because I'm not at mid-life-crisis age yet, but I thought that all 4 of these characters were basically deranged. I know that at the base of it all, the book is probably about lost love, the life you dream of versus the life you ended up with, the fact that sometimes it is too late to turn back time and about how what you really want is sometimes right under your nose without you even realising, but I had to try really hard and dig really deep to get even that. Also, Adam and Angelina are both musicians and so there is a reference to a song, artist or chord at least every 50 words which seemed like a nice theme at first but quickly got irritating (especially since all the references were to music from the seventies and so a lot of them were lost on me). Maybe the book is simply an artistic reflection of Graeme Simsion's own mid-life crisis/mental breakdown because the contrast between this and the last two books is crazy. Read The Rosie Project, don't read The Best of Adam Sharp.